Shabtabnews In this dark night, I have lost my way – Arise from a corner, oh you the star of guidance.
AL-Monitor – Blue Whale is an online Russian game consisting of a series of tasks assigned to players by administrators over a 50-day period, with the final challenge requiring players to commit suicide.
On Oct. 21, two teenage girls sought to commit suicide in the central Iranian city of Esfahan. A 15-year-old died, and a 16-year-old suffered serious injuries.
The next day, Esfahan’s police chief confirmed media reports about the reason behind the suicide and suicide attempt. “Before throwing themselves off the building, these two teenage girls had recorded [an audio message] saying goodbye to their families, and stated that their reason [to commit suicide] was their playing of the Blue Whale game.”
The minister of communications and information technology subsequently denied media reports about the incident, saying what happened in Esfahan had nothing do with Blue Whale. “The cyberspace threats are real and we shouldn’t deny that, but we should inform [people] and increase their awareness. … We shouldn’t make people afraid of cyberspace.”
The danger of games such as Blue Whale going viral among teenagers in Iran even led the supreme leader’s chief of staff to issue a warning Oct. 24: “These channels of [popular smartphone app] Telegram have really put families in danger, and as a result of poisoned propaganda the [rate of] divorce has increased, and even I have heard that they have made something [called] ‘Blue Whale.’”
Quoting a psychologist, conservative Tasnim News Agency wrote Oct. 22: “[The game’s administrators] use the cellphone’s location and threaten [the player by] telling him, ‘We are near your home.’ [They] announce the names of the places near the house, and the teenager who does not know what trick they are using gets scared and continues to play for 50 days, leading eventually to his suicide.”
The psychologist added, “These two young Esfahan girls are the victims of the Blue Whale in Iran. [This is] a warning to all members of society, from families to officials and families who are simply indifferent to [what] their children do in cyberspace, and they do not think that [their children] are at risk.”
Moreover, the semi-official Iranian Students’ News Agency wrote Oct. 23, “On Sept. 10, Director of Computer and Video Games Foundation Hassan Karimi Ghoddousi said in a press conference that the Blue Whale is a challenge, not a game … [and] with the arrest of its creators, there is virtually no other challenge.”
The news agency continued, “The question here is where this challenge is continued by Iranian administrators [of Blue Whale games].”
In others news, Tehran’s prosecutor general, Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi, said an agent working for Israel’s spy agency has been sentenced to death. “According to the indictment issued by the prosecutor’s office and the trial in court, the person was sentenced to death for cooperating with the Mossad spy service,” Jafari Dolatabadi said Oct. 24. He added, “One of the actions of the convict was disclosing to Mossad intelligence officers the addresses and some of the characteristics of 30 prominent individuals [involved in] research, military and nuclear projects.”
